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Thomas Magena home

-0.770° S   34.751° E  ·  1818 M
80 /100
PEAK
A genuinely good night — 10 hours of clear, dark sky from 20:00.
BEST WINDOW 20:00–06:00 · ASTRO DARK 21:00–06:00 · MOON 0%
Transparency
0.69
Seeing
1.00
Cloud
3%
Moon
0%

Excellent tonight

Hour by hour, local to Thomas Magena home. Colour encodes the score and nothing else; every other measurement is luminance.

Sky state
Lighter = daylight and twilight  ·  unshaded = astronomical dark
Score
20
21
22
23
00
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
80
60
50
42
42
52
55
48
59
76
34
0
BEST WINDOW
Low cloud
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
Mid cloud
5%
2%
1%
1%
1%
1%
0%
0%
0%
0%
0%
1%
High cloud
2%
52%
66%
85%
85%
67%
59%
76%
48%
6%
3%
3%
Transparency
0.61
0.63
0.55
0.48
0.52
0.61
0.67
0.69
0.66
0.63
0.61
0.57
Seeing
1.00
1.00
0.89
0.98
0.98
0.93
0.80
0.74
0.69
0.67
0.67
0.65
Moon clear
down
down
down
down
down
down
down
down
down
down
down
down
Inspect

Cloud tracks show clear sky — a longer bar is better. The figure inside each track is the raw measurement.

Why this hour scored what it did
20 Excellent · 80/100
Starting from
100
Cloud
−5
Transparency
−15
Seeing
−0
Moonlight
−0
Darkness
−0
Score
80
CLOUD 7% LOW 0% MID 5% HIGH 2% SUN -18.0° MOON -16.7° / 0% WIND 1 TEMP 18°
Excellent 75+ Good 55+ Fair 35+ Poor 15+ Not worth it Seeing is estimated from surface wind — see how we score.
Tonight's limiting factor
Why thin high cloud ruins long exposures

Cirrus you can barely see will halo your bright stars, lift your background and vary between frames. Visual observers shrug it off. Long exposures integrate it, so it accumulates.

What are you doing tonight?

The same forecast, weighted for the target. Planetary work barely cares about moonlight; long exposures die on high cloud a visual observer would never notice.

SET UP 19:30 · OBSERVE 20:00–06:00 · 10H · MEAN 55

Darkness and moonlight dominate. Faint fuzzies need a genuinely dark sky more than they need steady air.

202200020406
TWILIGHT BEGINS 06:00
SET UP 19:30 · OBSERVE 20:00–07:00 · 11H · MEAN 59

Seeing is everything and moonlight is irrelevant. Bright targets punch through twilight, so darkness barely counts.

202200020406
TWILIGHT BEGINS 07:00MOONLIGHT IGNORED FOR THIS TARGET
SET UP 00:30 · OBSERVE 01:00–06:00 · 5H · MEAN 51

Tolerates soft seeing, but high cloud wrecks a wide frame and moonlight raises the background everywhere.

202200020406
HIGH CLOUD CLEARS 01:00TWILIGHT BEGINS 06:00
SET UP 03:30 · OBSERVE 04:00–06:00 · 2H · MEAN 56

Needs conditions to hold still for hours. Sustained transparency matters more than any single good hour.

202200020406
HIGH CLOUD CLEARS 04:00TWILIGHT BEGINS 06:00
SET UP 23:30 · OBSERVE 00:00–06:00 · 6H · MEAN 53

Naked eye, whole sky. Total cloud and moonlight are the only things that count.

202200020406
TWILIGHT BEGINS 06:00
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The next week of nights

Tonight · 12 Aug
80
Excellent
MOON 0%
20:00–06:00
Tomorrow · 13 Aug
89
Excellent
MOON 2%
20:00–06:00
Friday · 14 Aug
67
Good
MOON 6%
02:00–06:00
Saturday · 15 Aug
72
Good
MOON 13%
21:00–22:00
Sunday · 16 Aug
56
Good
MOON 21%
21:00–22:00
Monday · 17 Aug
56
Good
MOON 30%
03:00–04:00
Tuesday · 18 Aug
71
Good
MOON 39%
03:00–04:00
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Nearby locations

About this forecast

Conditions for Thomas Magena home, Kenya are computed from the MET Norway forecast model for these exact coordinates, combined with sun and moon positions we calculate directly. The score weighs cloud cover by layer, atmospheric transparency, estimated seeing, moonlight and how dark the sky actually gets. Read the full method →